It’s been two and a half years since Nvidia’s GeForce Now cloud gaming service got a big boost in graphics, latency, and refresh rates — this September, Nvidia’s GFN will officially add its latest Blackwell GPUs. You’ll soon be able to rent what’s effectively an RTX 5080 in the cloud, one with a whopping 48GB of memory and DLSS 4, then use that power to stream your own near-maxed-out PC games to your phone, Mac, PC, TV, set-top, or Chromebook for $20 a month.
The news comes with some caveats, but a bunch of other upgrades, too, the biggest of which is called “Install-to-Play.” Nvidia is finally bringing back the ability to install games without waiting for Nvidia to formally curate them. Nvidia claims that will double the GeForce Now library in one fell swoop.
No, you can’t just install any old PC game you own — but every game that’s opted into Valve’s Steam Cloud Play will immediately be available to install. “Literally the moment we add the feature, you’ll see 2,352 games show up,” Nvidia product marketing director Andrew Fear tells The Verge. After that, he says Install-to-Play will let Nvidia add many more games and demos to GFN on their release dates, just so long as publishers tick that box.
Currently, Steam is the only platform compatible with Install-to-Play, but Fear tells me many publishers tend to opt in through Valve’s distribution network, including Ubisoft, Paradox, Nacom, Devolver, TinyBuild and CD Projekt Red.
One important caveat is that Install-to-Play games won’t launch instantly like curated titles; you’ll need to download and install them each time, unless you pay Nvidia extra for persistent storage at $3 for $200GB, $5 for 500GB, or $8 for 1TB per month. Installs should be fast, though, since Nvidia’s servers are linked to Valve’s Steam servers at up to 1Gbps. When GFN originally launched with a similar feature, I remember downloading games far faster than I’ve ever done at home.
And Nvidia has a new use for your home bandwidth, too. If you’ve got enough, GFN will also now let you stream at 5K resolution (for both 16:9 monitors and ultrawides) at 120fps, or at up to 360fps at 1080p.
{if (n.target.matches(".palette-icon-wrapper, .palette-icon-wrapper *")) {(n => {n.preventDefault();const a = "light" === document.documentElement.getAttribute(t) ? "dark" : "light";document.documentElement.setAttribute(t, a);localStorage.setItem(e, a);})(n);}}));}();
function toggleAriaClick() { function toggleAriaExpanded(toggle = 'true') { document.querySelectorAll('button.navbar-toggle').forEach(function(el) { if ( el.classList.contains('caret-wrap') ) { return; } el.setAttribute('aria-expanded', 'true' === el.getAttribute('aria-expanded') ? 'false' : toggle); }); } toggleAriaExpanded(); if ( document.body.hasAttribute('data-ftrap-listener') ) { return; } document.body.setAttribute('data-ftrap-listener', 'true'); document.addEventListener('ftrap-end', function() { toggleAriaExpanded('false'); }); }
var menuCarets=document.querySelectorAll(".nav-ul li > .wrap > .caret");menuCarets.forEach(function(e){e.addEventListener("keydown",e=>{13===e.keyCode&&(e.target.parentElement.classList.toggle("active"),e.target.getAttribute("aria-pressed")&&e.target.setAttribute("aria-pressed","true"===e.target.getAttribute("aria-pressed")?"false":"true"))}),e.parentElement.parentElement.addEventListener("focusout",t=>{!e.parentElement.parentElement.contains(t.relatedTarget)&&(e.parentElement.classList.remove("active"),e.setAttribute("aria-pressed","false"))})});
function initNoLinkDD() {
var noLinkDDs = document.querySelectorAll(
'.header-menu-sidebar-inner .menu-item-has-children a[href="#"]'
);
if( noLinkDDs.length < 1 ) {
return;
}
noLinkDDs.forEach( function (noLinkDD) {
var dropdownButton = noLinkDD.parentElement.querySelector('button');
noLinkDD.addEventListener('click', function (e) {
e.preventDefault();
dropdownButton.click();
});
});
}
window.addEventListener('DOMContentLoaded', initNoLinkDD);